The present invention generally relates to a new retail point-of-sale (POS) service architecture. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for providing multiple services via a point-of-sale portal architecture.
With the rapid development of the Internet and e-commerce, current merchant point-of-sale delivery systems are at a state of imminent change. At the center of this shift are consumers with little discretionary time and expectations for convenience and personal attention from merchants. Aware of how consumers are viewing commerce, merchants want to leverage these developments, as they always have, to increase sales, reduce costs and ensure customer loyalty.
Current retail POS systems are essentially static and are ineffective in delivering new personalized services. For the most part, today's POS infrastructure is designed primarily to facilitate consumer payment authorization and provides very limited capability for non-payment business services. As a result, current POS infrastructure supports almost exclusively magnetic stripe debit and credit cards. Implementing new functionality and services at a current POS terminal is difficult, slow and expensive. Hence, it would be desirable to provide a new POS portal architecture that is capable of delivering new functionality and services as well as accommodating additional alternative payment instruments and devices.